The story of my cliches

My first cliche was at age 18, when, two months into a Multimedia degree, I was suddenly 20 weeks pregnant. Er, oops. My boyfriend and I never considered abortion, and I had a textbook pregnancy (if you excuse the Rhesus D- injections) until about 34 weeks and 3 days. From there, it went downhill at 100mph.

At a routine midwife appointment, my blood pressure was high. Very high. Then I happened to mention the cool thing I could do with my ankles. Me and Dave had amused ourselves for the last few days by making smiley faces in them, because of the water retention, which we thought every pregnant woman got. Not this level of retention apparently. Go directly to hospital, do not pass Go, do not collect your fake money. So, dutiful, albeit slightly terrified us went to the local maternity unit of Barnsley District General Hospital. We were ushered straight onto the Admissions unit and I was given lots and lots of blood tests. Eighty odd student midwifes came to look at my fascinating self, or so it felt. My sister was on nights that night at the same hospital, but on a different ward. She came before work to see me, and then it gets a bit blurry.

I can remember Dave and Julie looking at a leaflet the consultant had given but Dave had swiftly pocketed. A leaflet for pre-eclampsia, I was told later. Then, a few hours later after steadily climbing my blood pressure was 160/110, far too high for little old me. But baby's heartbeat wasn't having any part of the excitement, and started slowing down.

I was fastened into a gown and walked into theatre, where I sat hunched forward, watching a pool of blood collect on the floor at the nurse's feet. I mentioned it and she screwed the cap onto my cannula. The consultant had forgotten!
As soon as the anaesthesiologist struck gold with my spine, I was told to lay down to be put under general anaesthetic. They knocked my throat on the way down with the breathing tube, which explained why I woke up with a mouth full of dried blood.

Dylan Thomas Parker was born 6 weeks early on Thursday 22ND April, 2004 at 23.32pm. He only weighed 4lbs 2oz and was taken straight up to SCBU to recover from the birth, where there was help if he needed it. I vaguely remember my aunt coming with flowers but then the morphine set in and I came out of my fog two days later. To see an A4 picture of a baby with a ventilator strapped to it's tiny face. Needless to say, I burst into tears at the first midwife I saw that morning and Dave took me up to SCBU to see Dylan for the first time. We walked up and I was promptly told off, because of my C-section. It never occurred to us to get a wheelchair.

Dylan was so tiny, and adorable, but so were the other tiny babies there, and I was asleep for the first two days of Dylan's life. I felt slightly detached. I pumped milk for him and he gained weight for two weeks and we were allowed home.

Except I didn't want to go to my home, where i felt that my mum would instantly take over my baby and I didn't want that. So I went to live with Dave and his mum and step-dad (Dave had moved out of my mum's after living with me for a year and a half after a massive argument.
Guess how well that went. We moved to Dave's dad and step-mum's house after four months, because we were asked to leave. (God forbid someone should rain on the parade Dave's step-dad had been building for himself!) I was glad to get out of there, I was ready to push his step-dad down the stairs, or strangle him with the headphone cord he used for his 32-inch TV (that he played at top volume every.single.hour.of.every.single.day, when he wasn't poisoning his liver at the pub, that is.)

Dave's dad's house was better, but it still wasn't our own space. Plus a teetering relationship and a newborn premature baby kinda put things in perspective. If we were getting through the bad patch between me and Dave, we had to move out.

Lucky for us, we had been on the council housing list for oh, nearly two years and were offered a house the same day we were 'asked to leave'. Thank God for that.

The house was great, three decent-sized bedrooms, two big rooms downstairs, new kitchen. Acid-green swirly headache carpet glued to the hallway, stairs and landing. We still haven't been brave enough to rip it up. Lost city of Atlantis is probably down there!

Oh, and did I mention I was pregnant again?!